332 



the ' Flora Lapponica,'* "that if you abstract the female flowers the 

 plant will be no longer an Atriplex but exactly a Chenopodium." 

 A remark, which, by the way, is not so strictly applicable to many 

 species of Atriplex as the one now before us. 



1 have a perfect recollection of gathering a specimen of our Atri- 

 plex on an old compost heap at Sandown, several years ago, and 

 being considerably puzzled at the time wdiat to make of it, as the 

 plant was only just beginning to form flower- spikes. I judged it 

 might be a very luxuriant example of Chenopodium hybridum, with 

 which I was then practically unacquainted, or a monstrously over- 

 grown root of spinach. 1 have now no doubt of what was its real 

 nature, since I have met with it a second time in a state for determi- 

 nation, and in a much more satisfactory locality. T have been thus 

 led into detail, because I believe this old denizen of the kitchen-gar- 

 den is become extremely rare and known but to few ; that it is pro- 

 bably no longer cultivated by any but the curious botanist, but that 

 it occasionally maintains its ground in this as in other parts of Europe, 

 where, from its general family resemblance to the rest of this too 

 much neglected and perhaps uninviting tribe, it is passed by or con- 

 founded with its congeners. 



Since writing the above, I have been informed by an intelligent 

 young gardener, whose name has already appeared in the pages of this 

 Journal, Mr. Thomas Meehan, that Atriplex hortensis frequently ap- 

 pears as a weed in and about St. Clare, near this town, but is not 

 cultivated there. 



William Arnold Bromfield. 

 Ryde, Isle of Wight, 



September 25, 1845. 



On the Polygonum mite of Schrank, and allied species. 

 By Hewett C. Watson, Esq., F.L.S. 



Three additional species of Polygonum have been lately enume- 

 rated in the descriptive Floras of Britain, which were either omitted 

 altogether in preceding works, or noticed only as varieties of other 

 better known species. They appear in the ' British Flora,' fifth edi- 

 tion, under the names of Roberti, mite and laxum. Having been 



* Fl. Lapp., p. 303. 



